Digital Video Better Be up to Millennials' Standards

Three-quarters ditch poor digital video within 4 minutes

Millennials don’t find videos; videos find them, according to February 2015 research by Trendera.

When the trend forecasting and brand strategy firm asked US millennial internet users how they found videos, nearly four in 10 said they saw what videos were recommended for them. Fully 37% subscribed to certain channels so that their favorite content would come to them when available, 36% relied on online trends to tell them what to view, and just over three in 10 looked at what their friends on social had shared.

Video services better be ready to go once they grab millennial viewers. In an online study of 750 US adults ages 26 to 34 conducted in February 2015 by Conviva, three-quarters of respondents said they were willing to endure poor digital video experiences for just 4 minutes or less before ending the video.

The better the experience a video site or app provides, the more time it gets with millennial viewers. Viewers who had the highest-quality experience—low interruption, high fidelity—spent nearly 20 minutes on the site weekly, on average—65.8% higher than the 11.4 minutes spent with services providing low picture fidelity and excessive interruptions.

Video services that can’t appease millennial demand for a smooth experience risk losing their audience. While millennial digital video viewers were most likely to immediately close a video and try again (49%), 40% of respondents abandoned the service altogether, opting to view the video on a different app, site or platform or to stop watching video online altogether.

eMarketer expects 95.6% of 18-to-24-year-old internet users in the US to watch digital video content via any device at least monthly this year and 90.1% of those ages 25 to 34 to do so.